And.... Winner!

Every once in awhile, your bets pay off. This photo from August came about as a result of listening to the scanner and dropping everything when i heard the word "shooting," which turned out to be incorrect. He merely claimed to be shot to try and keep the local cops from searching his car and finding a copious amount of drugs and ammunition. After finding that out, i worked the scene to find a good shot of him in the back of the car. Him yelling to a friend "Don't leave me, bro" was simply icing on the cake.




1st Place Spot News August 2007 NPPA Region 6

Twenty-two year-old Christopher Rex Conway yells out the back of an Athens Clarke County Police car on Glenhaven Ave. on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 after being arrested on multiple drug related charges after Conway was spotted driving recklessly and fled from police. After being stopped, Conway initially told police that he had been shot (he was not) and his vehicle was searched, revealing a large sum of cash, ziploc bags of marijuana, other drugs and ammunition. Conway is charged with posession of marijuana with intent to distribute, two counts possession of marijuana within 1,000’ of a School, possession of marijuana within 1,000’ of Housing, possession of a schedule II drug, possession of a schedule IV drug, reckless driving, and fleeing/attempting to elude.

More HS Football

So yeah. Every once in awhile you can get a good high school football field that looks decent at night. Me, i HATE the on camera strobe look of high school football. So this leads a photographer to either 1 - pray for an early start time (1:30 PM is a great time) or 2 - pray for good lighting. Anything that is faster than 250 @ 2.8 @ 1250 ISO is usually a godsend. Usually then i can get at least the eyes or some key feature of the players nice and crisp. I'm expecting motion blur, and all these photos have it. Shame it wasn't daylight.

Usually I've found the private schools have the best lighting. The best was Jacksonville Bolles (they have artificial turf too) but Prince Ave here in Athens was a close 2nd. Exposure could have been 1/400th in the center of the field. It was one of those games where we were covering 2 local teams, so its a case of just photographing who has the ball.






All in all, i had a pretty good game shooting. Sometimes i have a hard time reading the play. (I know baseball much better than football) but i was able to pick up the pass patterns pretty easily.



And this is a pretty bizarre attempt at framing a replica of Ben Epps' first airplane as seen through a set of aviator's goggles.

Animal Auction

Yesterday was my first dealings with an animal auction. It was pretty interesting. Very dark tho. It would make a good soundslides project, that with the audio of the auctioneer. Its almost like a song.

So yeah, i was out trying to work on framing again. I wish it was lighter in there because i wanted to use a higher aperture on the lens than 5.6, but even at 1250, its 1/20th of a sec and some serious noise.

Red Hat Mayhem

Well, the Red Menace invade Athens this past weekend. No, not the communists, the Red Hat Ladies.

Thus i continued my attempts at framing. The biggest problem with assignments at times when people are eating or in a social function, generally they're not doing anything. You can have 300 women eating breakfast but thats still photos of people eating breakfast. Someone needs to get that through the editors heads.

Fore!!!

While it's still baseball season, this is what my Phillies will be doing come Sunday. (I left the car, we went up 3-2 on a Jimmy Rollins triple. Two innings later, we serve up a fat grand slam that makes me very unhappy)

Just more on my framing kick. I had to go out and make a feature photo because... well I wanted to. Sure beat watching the debacle that was the game.



UGA Senior Randy Matheny hits a golf ball on the UGA driving range on Thursday, October 4, 2007.

Framing(ham?)

Boston reference there. I lived (near) there the last time the Phils won the series back in 1980. Fourteen years since we've played in the playoffs. After yesterday's second inning, i'm amazed i haven't thrown anything at the computer.

So the past few days, I've been working on more framing, and less silouettes. One was actually spot-ish news, a truck ran over a fire hydrant where the other was an ice cream social. I used french doors, a british style phone booth as well good, ol' fashioned branches.



Brian Brodrick eats dinner at Watkinsville home with his wife Susan, son Aaron, and daughter Phoebe on Monday, October 1, 2007. Brodrick was named as one of the "40 Under 40" by Georgia Trend magazine.




Athens-Clarke County utility workers search for the shut off valve to a fire hydrant that was ripped from the ground, breaking the water line, after it was hit by a truck at the corner of Prince Ave. and Millage Ave. on Tuesday, October 2, 2007.



Janice Sand take a bite of ice cream at an ice cream social dedicating the Eugene Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia on Tuesday, October 2, 2007.

Now i know editors love Dogs in the newspaper and they love ice cream, so......


Anjing is fed ice cream by her owner alumnus Tom Shannon at an ice cream social dedicating the Eugene Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia on Tuesday, October 2, 2007.

Long Weekend

I'm listening to "The State of Massachusetts" off the Murphy's new album. Perhaps Brittney should have listened to it... "The poison stole your babies, the judges took your rights. You can have your children for the night." Anyways onto photojournalism.

(Boston - Philly World Series anyone? Please?)



Couldn't resist this sillouette

So between the Murphys show Thursday night to the football game on Saturday, that was about 42 hours which i shot 2 concerts and 2 football games. Way too many images. Lots of crappy football photos. Lots of underexposed, noisy, out of focus concert photos. Shooting with a 1.8 lens wide open or at 1/30th of a second isn't easy, when your subjects have a lot of energy and are bouncing around everywhere.







I really wasn't on my game for UGA football or HS football. I didn't do that well. I was still in concert mode for Pigpen studio's cd release party at the 40 watt. I mentally lost focus and thats on me. Not enough sleep. Not enough food. Too much talking on the sidelines. I do best with the earplugs in, ignoring everyone and focusing on the moments at hand and making photos.

Every once in awhile I'm very happy with my work. I just want to constantly be getting better. Maybe i am. Maybe i'm just expecting too much right off the bat. Who knows.